2011 Balochistan International Conference, Washington, DC, USA

Background: Amnesty International | February 23, 2011 | Press releaseA breakdown of victims of reported disappearances and alleged extrajudicial and unlawful killings in Balochistan is available here.

Balochistan International Conference demands international intervention in Balochistan.

WASHINGTON DC: The Baloch Society of North America organized an international conference on Balochistan at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, on April 30, 2011. Dr. Wahid Baloch, the conference organizer, appealed to the UN, the USA and the international community to intervene in Balochistan to help stop the human rights abuses committed against the Baloch by Pakistan's security forces and military. The conference was attended by Baloch leaders, journalists, analysts, scholars and human rights activists from around the world who described Balochistan's history and offered analysis of and solutions to the current crisis. Below are reports from the conference as well as speeches delivered at the conference.

Dr. Baloch Wahid, conference organizer, founder and president of Baloch Society of North America. Dr. Baloch graduated as a physician from Bolan Medical College, University of Balochistan, Quetta, in 1990 and emigrated to America in 1992: Opening remarks

Conference notes: Malik Siraj Akbar, editor of 'The Balochhal', highlighted the conditions of Baloch IDPS in Balochistan and noted that Pakistan's military government is preventing aid groups from helping more than 80,000 people – many of them acutely malnourished children – who have been displaced by the widening war between the Balochs and Islamabad. UNICEF and Pakistan provincial health officials, who surveyed the area, reported that 59,000 of those suffering are women and children and that 28 percent of the children under the age of 5 are "acutely malnourished." Six percent of the children were so underfed that they would die without immediate medical attention. Mr. Akbar noted that one foreign observer who visited a camp said, "I would say this now qualifies as a 'crimes against humanity' situation." Mr. Akbar noted that aid agencies and diplomats have been pressing Pakistani authorities to permit them to distribute aid packages like emergency rations, tents, and medicine, but Pakistan refuses to grant permission. The UN won't deliver aid without permission from the host nation, said a top UNICEF officer for Pakistan.

"We have tried everything to get our aid there," says said a top UNICEF officer for Pakistan. "I even know of aid groups that tried to deliver relief without permits, but they got turned back on the road." Meanwhile, reports from the region indicate the situation has grown even worse.

Ali Arjemandi, a Norwegian Baloch human rights activist and brother of Ehsan Arjemandi, a Norwegian citizen who was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies on August 7, 2009, in Balochistan highlighted his brother's case, along with many other disappeared "missing" Balochs and asked the international community to investigate their cases. Mr. Arjemandi is preparing to address the ICC at The Hague in the near future on behalf of his brother and other disappeared Baloch missing persons.

Andrew Eiva: video: American interests in Balochistan
"From thin air [Andrew Eiva] helped build a grass roots movement and built an organization that had a breathtaking 20 year downrange vision. He is an American original whose accomplishments Mr. Wilson and the late Mr. Avrakotos would love to claim." Read about Andrew Eiva at jezail.org

T. Kumar: video: Human Rights Violations in Balochistan/Pakistan
Asia Pacific Advocacy Director of Amnesty International, USA. Mr. Kumar is a former political prisoner in Sri Lanka and a professor at Washington College of Law's Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Conference notes: T. Kumar, Asia Pacific Advocacy Director of Amnesty International, USA, highlighted the grave human rights situation in Balochistan and described how Baloch are being targeted, kidnapped and killed. He said that according to Amnesty International's findings, the situation in Balochistan is of extreme concern. People are disappearing, they are being killed and abducted in large numbers and the Pakistani government is using these abuses to intimidate and silence the Baloch population. The Pakistani government wants to suppress the people of Balochistan and create panic among the educated masses. He noted there was a lot of international attention focused on Pakistan, and it may be that US foreign policy doesn't touch on Balochistan because it may hurt their relationship with Pakistan and their war on terror. He noted that explains why the US and other countries are not addressing Balochistan as a major issue as they fear ruining their relations with Pakistan.

Munir Mengal, human rights activist and president of Baloch Voice Foundation based in Paris, France, also addressed the conference via Skype: Balochistan: The geostrategic importance for Peach and Security in South Asia (Full text to come...)

At the close of the conference, Dr. Wahid Baloch read the conference resolution titled "The Washington Declaration of 2011."

The following are the resolutions read at the Balochistan International Conference in Washington, DC, organized by The Baloch Society of North America at Carnegie Center for International Peace, on April 30, 2011.

We the participants of the Balochistan International Conference 2011, organized by Baloch Society of North America, on April 30, 2011, in Washington DC, unanimously declare the following resolutions collectively called “The Washington DC Declaration of 2011.”

1. This Conference considers Balochistan to be an illegally occupied land and strongly condemns the Pakistani and Iranian ongoing illegal occupation of Balochistan, the genocide of Baloch people and exploitation of Baloch resources, and asks the UN and International community to immediately intervene to END the Pakistani and Iranian illegal, immoral and unjust occupation of Balochistan.

2. This Conference asks all the Baloch leaders, students and Baloch nationalist political parties and activists, both inside occupied Balochistan and outside, to shun all their differences for the greater interest of Balochistan, and join hands with HH Khan of Kalat to liberate Balochistan from the Pakistani and Iranian illegal occupation.

3. This Conference condemns Pakistan using the "war on terror" as a "cash in business" and black mailing tool, and ask the US and other countries to stop giving more aid to Pakistan for this war as Pakistan is not and never been a truthful and trusted ally in the war on terror against its own created ideological friends, Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists. The conference strongly condemns the bloodshed of innocent Pashtun people in the name of war on terror.

4. This Conference strongly condemns Pakistan and Iran for killing, torture, murder, arrests and the disappearances of Baloch political leaders, activists and students and asks the international community to take notice of Pakistan and Iran's gross human right violations in both Pakistani and Iranian occupied Balochistan.

5. This Conference strongly condemns Pakistani and Iranian state terrorism against Baloch people in Occupied Balochistan and asks the UN and US to help stop Pakistan and Iran from committing more war crimes in Balochistan.

6. This Conference strongly condemns Pakistani interference and terrorism in Indian Kashmir and Afghanistan, and its sending of suicide bombers into Afghanistan and India to kill innocent people, Afghan and NATO troops and demands the UN ensure all terrorist-producing madrassas and ISI training terror camps in Pakistan are closed.

7. This Conference strongly condemns the Mumbai terrorist attacks and demands the arrest of Mumbai terror Mastermind Hafiz Saeed and his gang members and to bring them to justice.

8. This Conference demands the arrest of 9/11 attack terrorists Bin laden, Aymen al Zawahiri and Mullah Omar who are still hiding in Pakistani sanctuaries provided to them by Pakistani military and its ISI. This meeting demands their arrest and extradition to the USA for trial and punishment for their murderous acts against humanity. This Conference considers Pakistan a terrorist state and asks the UN and the International Community to declare her as such.

9. This Conference strongly condemns the arrest and kidnapping of Baloch Diaspora Political leader and human right activist Ehsan Aarjumandi, a Norwegian citizen, who was kidnapped by the Pakistani ISI on August 7, 2009, in Pakistani occupied Balochistan. This Conference calls on the UN, human right organizations, the US and Norwegian governments to ensure his safety, security and immediate safe release. (A copy of this resolution is being sent to the UN, US State Department and the Norwegian embassy in Washington, DC).

10. This Conference strongly condemns the ongoing daily intimidation, harassment, killings, attack and burning of Hindus, Christian, Sikh and other minorities in Pakistan by Pakistani Panjabi Taliban and Islamic fanatics and extremists and asks the world community to take notice of these inhuman acts and ensure the safety and security of all minorities in Pakistan. This Conference condemns the government of Pakistan for failing to provide security and safety to the lives, places of worship and properties of the Pakistani religious minorities.

11. This Conference demands the US government and world community call Pakistan a terrorist state and suspend all military and economic aid until Pakistan complies with UN and international laws, respects, honors and safeguards human rights and stops its terror campaign against the Baloch, Sindhi, Pashtun people and all religious minorities, including Hindu, Sikh and Christian in Pakistan, and scraps its nuclear weapons and hands over the world's most wanted terrorists Osama Bin laden, Aymen Alzwahiri, Mullah Omar, Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim and nuclear terrorist A.Q. Khan. There are confirmed report that all these terrorists are hiding in Pakistan with full knowledge and support of Pakistani military and ISI.

12. This Conference condemns the extra-judicial assassinations of Nawab Akbar Bugti, Balach Marri, Ghulam Mohd, Lala Munir and Sher Mohd Baloch Habib Jalib, and many other prominent Baloch leaders and political activists and asks the UN to conduct a full investigation into their killings and to bring the killers to justice. This Conference demands the immediate release of all Baloch “missing” persons kidnapped by Pakistan’s ISI and its security forces.

13. This Conference calls for a peaceful balkanization of Pakistan on ethnic and linguistic and cultural lines to eliminate and eradicate Islamic extremism and terrorism once and for all. This Conference rejects the artificially drawn British boundaries of the Durand line and Goldsmith line and demands the redrawing of the map of the region based on ethnic, linguistic and cultural lines.

14. This meeting condemns the looting and plunder of Baloch resources by Pakistan, Iran and all other private companies, including Barrack Gold, who are involved in the exploration of Balochistan’s rich mineral resources and ask all these companies to stop their robbing of Baloch wealth without the Baloch consent and to leave Balochistan peacefully until its freedom and sovereignty is restored. Once Balochistan is free, they can resume their work with Baloch consent and cooperation.

15. This conference condemn the killings of non-Baloch Punjabis and Pashtun in Balochistan and denounces all kinds of violence and terrorism in Balochistan by state agents and non-state actors.

16. This conference strongly condemns the Pakistani state's "kill and dump" policy of Baloch youths, students, political activists and journalists across the Balochistan, including Siddiqe Eido, a senior Baloch journalist and member of HRCP, and Yousuf Nazar Baloch, a student leader of Baloch student Organization, who’s bullet riddled tortured bodies were discovered yesterday near Ormara, Balochistan. Both were earlier abducted by Pakistani agencies. Their family members had set up a hunger strike camp outside Pasni Press club for the last four months demanding their release. We strongly condemn all killings of Baloch and ask the UN and world community to investigate these crimes and human right violation in Occupied Balochistan.